Tortoise by Candlelight

by Nina Bawden

With the ferocity of a mother tiger defending her cubs, fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean watches over her her amiable drunken father, her gaunt, evangelical old grandmother, her beautiful, wayward sister Alice and most precious of all, eight-year-old Oliver, who has the countenance of an angel and the ethical sense of a cobra. But with the arrival of new neighbours, the outside world intrudes into the isolated privacy of family life and Emmie's kingdom is no longer secure. Combining the guile of a young child with the desperation of adolescence, Emmie fights to stave off the changes- and the revelations- that growing up necessarily brings. Powerful, heart-rending, but never sentimental, Tortoise by Candlelight is a captivating excursion into the landscape of youth.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Nina Bawden was a popular British novelist and children's writer. Her mother was a teacher and her father a marine.

When World War II broke out she spent the school holidays at a farm in Shropshire along with her mother and her brothers, but lived in Aberdare, Wales, during term time.
Bawden attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Her novels include Carrie's War, Peppermint Pig, and The Witch's Daughter.

A number of her works have been dramatised by BBC Children's television, and many have been translated into various languages. In 2002 she was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and her husband Austen Kark was killed.

Bawden passed away at her home in London on 22 August 2012.

Reviews

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 60s? Story of a 14-year old girl trying to hold her dysfunctional family together through a period of change (growing up, sick grandmother, new neighbours). Slightly dated punctuation and some self-consciously "clever" phrases.

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...

Another Virago Modern Classic here and my first time reading Nina Bawden’s adult fiction. Emmie Bean is trying to hold the household together in her mother’s absence and with her father a well-meaning drunk. Her siblings do not help. Her home is in a state of squalor. Even those she does reach out to do. As with so much of Bawden’s young adult novels, there is the same sense of the young people existing in a different world to the adults, their concerns passing unnoticed. Still, the characters were not as striking as those in Bawden’s better known fiction such as Carrie’s War and although I did enjoy the novel, the finer details have rapidly faded from memory.

[Alexandra Daw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. A bit unusual but not too unusual. Easy to read.

[Ayreon · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Clewchuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It was about young people. If it was supposed to be a kids book, of that I’m not sure. The characters seemed quite real, and I’m always a fan of the antihero, which Emmie is.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Nina Bawden so much!
More constructive review to follow!

[Lisa Bywell · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first foray into Nina's adult books, and I loved it.